Copy Removal

What we take on

Photographs you took, wherever they have turned up.

A notice says under oath that the photo is yours and the use is not allowed. So we take on what can be said truthfully, and turn the rest down in writing before any work starts.

Search for your photo What we turn down
A green velvet sofa against a pale wall on a wooden floor
A product stillShot for your own shop

Taken on

Four places a photo of yours tends to end up.

Each one has a different route to removal. The comparison with your original is the same for all four.

  • stayhere-rentals.example

    A bright two-bedroom by the park

    A bright living room with a yellow armchair and white shelves

    A website

    Your photographs on someone else’s website

    Blogs, news sites, online shops, directories. The same photo, or a cropped, resized or filtered version of it, compared side by side with your original before anything is drafted.

  • morning.cups
    Cups of coffee with latte art on a wooden café table

    A social post

    Reposts on social platforms

    Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, X, TikTok, Reddit. Each platform has its own copyright form; that is where the notice goes, not to the account holder.

  • homegoods-market.example
    A black chair with wooden legs on a teal background

    Black side chair, oak legs

    Add to cart

    A shop listing

    Product photos in another seller’s listing

    Etsy, Amazon, eBay, Shopify stores and print-on-demand sites. Filed through the marketplace’s intellectual-property report, against the listing.

  • lena.makes.things

    A white ceramic vase on a marble plinth beside a dried plant
    A pine forest disappearing into morning fog
    A rowing boat on a turquoise mountain lake, cliffs and a summit behind
    A jagged mountain peak lit orange at dusk above a valley road
    A bowl of salad with egg, avocado and greens on a wooden table
    Glass office towers seen from below against a grey sea

    A profile

    A profile built from your pictures

    Where you took the photos yourself, the copies can be reported as copyright. The impersonation itself is a separate report, and we tell you how to make it.

Turned down

Some requests a notice cannot honestly carry.

These are declined before anything is drafted, and nothing is charged for them.

Every refusal, with the reasons

  1. Photos of you that someone else took

    The photographer owns those. We can explain how to ask them to act, or how to use a platform’s privacy or impersonation route instead.

  2. Logos, brand names and trademarks

    That is trademark law. A copyright notice is the wrong instrument for it, and using one anyway can count against you later.

  3. Stock photos you licensed

    If the image came from a stock library, the library or the original photographer holds the rights, not you.

  4. Quotation for comment, news or parody

    Likely fair use. Filing against it puts the sender at risk, not the publisher. We will explain why and decline.

  5. Commissioned work without a transfer

    A photographer you hired owns what they shot unless a signed document transfers it. We check this with you before any notice is drafted.

Inside the notice

Six parts the statute asks for, every time.

17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3)(A) lists them. Leave one out and the recipient has not been properly notified, so our drafting will not produce a notice with a gap.

  1. 1

    A signature

    Yours, or ours as your authorized agent. An electronic signature is enough, and ours carries both names.
  2. 2

    The photograph

    Where your original was published, or a description of it if it never went online. Several photos on one site can share a notice.
  3. 3

    The copy’s exact address

    The page, post or listing, not the account or the site in general. A recipient is not obliged to go looking.
  4. 4

    Contact details

    A postal address, a telephone number and an email. You choose which are used, and a business address is fine.
  5. 5

    Good faith

    A statement that the use is not authorized by you, your agent or the law. Fair use is part of “the law”, which is why it is weighed first.
  6. 6

    The sworn sentence

    Under penalty of perjury, that the notice is accurate and that the sender is authorized to act. It is the line that makes the rest count.

What they see

Your name goes on the notice.

  • Hosts and platforms

    Usually pass the notice on to whoever runs the site or the account, with the names and contact details in it.

  • Google and Lumen

    Google sends copies of removal requests to the public Lumen database. The names and reported addresses appear there; contact details do not.

  • Marketplaces

    Commonly forward the complaint to the seller, including how to reach the person who reported it.

You choose the name and address before anything is filed.

A notice has to identify the rights holder and give a way to reach them. It does not have to be your home address; a studio or business address does the job.

Free, and no account

Find out where it has gone.

Paste the address of your photo. The search lists pages showing it and says how each one matched, so you can decide what to take on.

Upload the file on the homepage

JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 6 MB

Go to the search

Already know where the copies are? Open a matter.